


Time's up

by Wrathofscribbles



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: IgNyx - Freeform, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-14
Updated: 2018-11-14
Packaged: 2019-08-23 19:16:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,046
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16624859
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wrathofscribbles/pseuds/Wrathofscribbles
Summary: If you wear the ring of the Lucii... you don't walk away from it unscathed.





	Time's up

**Author's Note:**

> **Big bold reminder that Final Fantasy XV and all of its content is property of Square Enix.** I just like to play in the sandpit they've created for the fans.
> 
> A late day 3 entry for Ignyxweek (because clearly writing schedules and I don’t get along well :T ).  
> Prompt: wearing the ring of the Lucii”

It’s a siren song in the air, a melody that calls to every fiber of his being and plucks at the strings on his limbs until he turns around quite without meaning to, as the rest of them do.  But he hesitates where they do not, watches as they light up like firecrackers and follow the sound, hounds on a fox’s trail.  The lure proves too potent to resist for long and he eventually follows, curious and wary and more than a little on edge.

Rightly so when their nominated voicebox speaks, pitches the terms of power on yet another unfortunate soul.

**What will you give to save your King?**

_Run, you poor bastard._   Nyx says - or tries to, the blow to his jaw so sudden his head snaps to the side and he staggers a step or two to keep his balance, voice overruled and snuffed out by the others hissing.

“Anything,” says a voice that has whatever passes as a beating heart freezing in place and Nyx spins round with a broken yell, “everything.”  


_No!  Ignis, don’t!_ But he’s too late, much too late, the ring’s already on a finger and flaring blinding white in its summon of them, of him, of every life trapped in the confines of its magic.

**The price is a life -**

“Then take mine,” no hesitation, no fear, fire in his eyes and soul and he’s bright as the noonday sun with the strength of his conviction, staring them down and lifting his chin in silent challenge to the stifling weight of their presence and they bristle, they hiss and spit at the lack of _respect_.  They strike out for his sight instead - **what use is an adviser without his vision?** \- but Nyx is there to meet the blow, pulling on the storm of magic around them all to catapult himself at the fingers stretching out towards Ignis’s face, the eyes he remembers every time he closes his own.  He’s little more than a Galahdian pup launching into the fray, prey to be snapped up in the maws of vicious kings, corrupt kings, wolves that know no mercy.  


**We will have our payment!**

_You won’t have_ him _, fucker._

Anger, the howl of a dark stormcloud on the horizon and between one breath and the next he is thrown to the ground in a blaze of agony, bones scorched black and veins bursting wide as death runs through him in a hectic pulse just like it did on a crumbling rooftop, the wrath of over a hundred kings surely rivaling that of the Infernian himself.

Behind him, beside him, _through_ him, there’s a tug, a vicious pull and a spark of phantom blue as the Armiger relinquishes Ignis’s daggers to hands bare of the gloves lost in Altissia’s wreckage.  Nyx grits his teeth through the agony, _he’s been through it before_ , and as his lover launches himself at the Chancellor - the _Accursed_  - Nyx scrambles to get his legs back in working order and moves to engage the brother, the Founder, the root behind all their loss and suffering, kukris familiar friends in his hands.

He moves to guard Ignis’s back, just as he said he would so many months ago.

* * *

Breathing, Ignis decides, is a horrifically painful affair.  The air rasps in his throat, _burns_  in his lungs, and every wheeze should be his last.  Too weak to move, too stubborn to die, he has to hold on one more minute for Noctis, and another, and another.  _He cannot die_ , not yet.

But he’s cold, so _tired_ , and the desire to close his eyes and rest them is almost too tempting to resist, stinging and _raw_  since the old kings vanished from his peripheral vision, taking their barbed displeasure with them, a sudden silence where that booming voice had been...  If there is life to be had in the Beyond he will surely feel regret for departing like this, for leaving Noctis to find his body devoid of life and soul, for adding one more loss on top of too many already -

A hand on the ashen mess of his arm, his shoulder, cupping his jaw and he _knows_ that hand, the callouses, has felt the tenderness of its touch and the bruising strength of it in the dead of night with Nyx’s voice, desperate whines and moans alike, loud in his ears.  Another on his chest, over his heart and the weak beat of it, gentle and warm and grounding and he opens his mouth to speak, to whisper, to yell his name at the top of his lungs.  No strength or breath for that and magic sparks at his fingertips in his ire, a speck of dust in comparison to that of the kings.

_Nyx_.

“Shh, Ignis.  It’s not your time.”  


_That voice_ , so close, breath on his face and he _has_  to blink, has to see, has to -

_Nyx_.

Nyx smiles and it pulls at the burns on his cheek, embers glowing where blood should be falling and there should be pain there, not relief, not a bright gleam in grey eyes he’s missed terribly with every aching heartbeat.  A thumb slides over his mouth, a lover’s touch he never expected to feel again and oh, if he must die then let _this_ be his end, let him carry _this_ image -

“It’s not your time, babe.  Not yet.”  Nyx says, soft as the perfume of Sylleblossoms in the air (he’s losing his _mind),_ the petals twirling around his lover and settling on the crystal shards sparkling with his every exhale.  


_Relief_  like he’s floating in water, soothing every ragged edge laid bare and bloody by the Lucii and the wicked slice of Ardyn’s weapons, healing magic chiming in his ears and he cries out a protest, tries to twist away from it but Nyx holds him firm, immovable, flickering with the mist of an oncoming warp.

_No!_

“Noctis needs you now.  Stand by him, and I’ll be here when it’s your turn.”  


_Nyx - !_

Lips on his forehead, weariness in his bones, and Nyx is little more than a ghost when he next blinks, forgets how to open his eyes again, too heavy, too tired, too dry -

“I love you, too.”  


Then he’s gone, and Ignis is alone.


End file.
